After the last scene in Loving Large

how the next memoir showed me it had to be written

If you haven’t read my memoir Loving Large, ask for it at your local bookseller, or hunt it down online. Just before it breaks into the epilogue I have a scene at the hospital with my son, Aaron. He challenges me in that scene. A challenge so out of my comfort zone, that I still haven’t faced it. Thus, another book will be born to tell the story of Where To Next.

here is a work-in-progress excerpt:

“I wonder where we’ll be in two years,” Aaron had asked me the day he finally got good news from a neurosurgeon. We had sipped our smoothies and walked, our feet echoing on the concrete floor of a newly built parking garage, the cadence of mine double timing his long strides. “I wonder who we’ll be.” He wondered aloud about what was coming for him in jobs, relationships, and life, and wondered the real estate market would still be the thing holding him back from owning a place of his own, his dream. 

I ran a couple of scenarios about the two-year time frame. What would my life be like? I was in a new relationship. Would it last? I was waiting to hear if my first book had been picked up by a publisher. Would it be out? Would I still be so worried about money, still so afraid of ending up alone? Would I have gotten rid of the house I was in, bailed on the housing market, finally made some decisions to say yes to opportunities? Would I have become brave enough to travel? 

He wasn’t done with me yet. He was bringing the big fire power. “I know you’ve been stopping yourself from doing things, feeling like you had to be here. Gooo, Mom.” He made a shooing motion with his massive hands, like he was shuffling a toddler away from the candy stand. “Gooo. Ireland. California.Wherever. Write, hike, drink, whatever.” And then, “Don’t you think Justin and I know that for the last ten years you’ve been living for us?” 

He was giving me the permission he thought I needed, to live more fully. He was judging me yes, but that wouldn’t occur to me until much later. I sensed he had been holding this one back. Did he need me to live bigger, travel, risk a move? Had he been carrying the responsibility of feeling like he was the reason I wasn’t striving for more in my life? Certainly the spectre of rare disease in our family had tragically alter the course of things for all of us. But I’d made choices for myself too, hadn’t I?

“You can let go now. We can take care of everything here. We aren’t assholes. We can keep your house standing and feed the cat. Gooo.” We drove on in silence that day, and although conversations about his future punctuated our conversations and banter in the months to come, I kept my cards close to my chest. He wanted to see a gesture, I’d give him one. 

Who was I kidding. No I wouldn’t. I still haven’t.